


A Rose By Any Other Name

by Sevenscorpions



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Blood, Doomed Timeline, Homestuck - Freeform, One Shot, Other, doomed rose - Freeform, god tier rose, homestuck angst, short fic, waking up after death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:11:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevenscorpions/pseuds/Sevenscorpions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can't remember who she is, or where she is. But she's beginning to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rose By Any Other Name

The first thing she thought was that it was warm. Warmer than she could remember having been in a long time. And bright, too. She squinted as everything came into focus. As her eyes adjusted, she could see… nothing. Absolutely nothing. She was standing on something solid, so it must have been a floor or ground of some kind. That was really the only thing she could say about her environment. Everything else was white, as far as she could see. Pure, unbroken whiteness that bent her mind. A few steps told her that nothing was going to change as she went forward- or was it back?

She tentatively sat down, trying to figure out what had happened. She remembered almost nothing. Just the sound of chaos and fire. After that, everything was blurry. There were shapes and forms and colors, but no definition, no way of telling what was what. Taking stock of herself, she saw that she wasn’t injured. She had two hands, two feet, no injuries that she could see. But she couldn’t remember her name. What was her name? She began to panic a little, trying to remember something, anything, of who she was and how she got here, wherever here was. She was so busy trying to remember who she was that she didn’t see her surroundings beginning to change It wasn’t until she had calmed that she noticed.

The sky was darkening to something that could almost be blue, and the world around her began to take on texture and sound and color until it looked like… something familiar. She had been here before, often, but she couldn’t remember when or why. Thinking that a little exploration might prompt some memory, she stood and began to walk. There was a house- a white house. It stood alone before a forest, and there were buildings far in the distance. The whiteness was still there, but it took the place of the sun. Somewhere, she could hear the sound of running water. 

As she took halting steps towards the house, she could feel her mind brighten, as if on the edge of a memory. It felt like drinking a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day, or the smell of a garden after rain. She began to remember small details, like her mother. Tall, blonde, and intimidating, but gentle and sweet. A mother she barely knew. Images began to come to the surface, enticing her with memories of a journal lying open on a bed, a cat running from the vacuum cleaner, a breakfast with french toast and blackberry jam. Piece by piece, her life came back to her, until she was lying in the grass, overwhelmed by everything that had happened to her, suddenly dumped into her head without warning. She had a life, she had friends, she had some kind of a family. But they weren’t here, and she knew that somehow this had happened before.

She remembered the four of them, laughing, playing with things they could never control. Four children caught up in a battle they couldn’t win, until they became adults they wouldn’t recognize as themselves. She remembered music, conducted by green fire and a light so bright it burned her eyes, but she couldn’t look away. 

She stood, the world seeming to spin around her feet as she understood. She knew almost everything now. Things were coming into focus, and she reached her hands down towards her stomach. She didn’t want to look, but she could feel the ragged flesh and the wetness that had to be blood. There wasn’t any sensation, but she knew. The whiteness that had always been there- it was in her eyes. She could see, because that was who she was. She had always been able to see what others couldn’t, even when she thought she was blind. The light was always there, it had lived inside her. She lifted her hands to her face and she slowly knelt down to the ground, her body shaking with emotion. Tears fell, and landed on the grass. They were white, too.

She hated this brightness, this blankness that was everywhere. She wished she was blind, she wished she was anything but what she was. She wanted darkness for once, cool, refreshing darkness. Greyish noise that filled up her ears like cotton. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She wasn’t meant to be a hero. And now, when it meant the most, she had deserted the people she loved. She thought that she would be with her friends, with the one she loved. Only in dreams would she find company now. It wasn’t her fault, she screamed to the sky. She wasn’t supposed to end up alone. 

After the rage and the fear had left her, she gathered herself up and walked back towards the house. She had an eternity to sort out her emotions. After all, the dead deserve some time to sort out their lives. But she had finally remembered her name.

Her name was Rose.


End file.
